Whickham and District Motor Club meet every Wednesday evening from around 8:00pm at the Kibblesworth Workmens Club, a local village venue offering a friendly welcome and extremely reasonable prices...........................................................................................

The 45th anniversary of The Shaw Trophy, organised by Whickham and District Motor Club took a new direction this year, to coincide with the anniversary and also the changing nature of the sport of rallying. With the popularity of historic rallying on the rise, Whickham and District Motor Club used this anniversary of itâ€™s longest running event to change the format of The Shaw Trophy from an all-night navigational rally, to a daytime event with numerous â€œspecial testsâ€ on farm tracks, private grounds and airfields. The event was predominantly for historic specification vehicles built before 1981, as well as having a separate class for modern cars.

There was great variation in the cars entered, ranging from Ford Escort Mk 1 and 2, Porsche 911, Volvo Amazon, MGB Roadster, Jaguar XK150, Clan Crusader, to name a few. With a leisurely 1030am start from Morpeth Rugby Club the crews took to the Northumberland countryside to contest the challenging route of â€œspecial testsâ€ and regularity sections.

Taking 1st overall were pre-event favourites John Ruddock and Bob Hargreaves in a Ford Escort Mk 1, combining very fast times on the â€œspecial testsâ€ and winning the regularity section. However, they were not fastest on the special tests; that accolade fell to Martin Ibbotson and Richard Gilbert in their Ford Escort Mk 2, but their performance on the regularity section dropped them to 8th Overall.

2nd Overall went to Sue and Tom Hynd in their Fiat 127, who were also voted by the marshalls of the event to be the most entertaining crew of the day. Only 3 seconds behind them were the Father and Son pairing of Michael and Josh Davison in their Mini. Taking the honours in the modern car class were Geoff Gibson and David Clemitson in their Vauxhall Nova, finishing 6th overall.

Andy Aird and Paul Hughes

The organisers of the event would like to thank Tony Thompson of Tony Thompson and Sons Garage (Morpeth). Tony, who is contesting in the National Historic Rally Championship will be competing the Tyneside Stages in August in his Vauxhall Chevette HSR.